I'm getting old

So, I'm reading a novel. Not until 1/3 of the way into the book do I come to the full realization that I've read this before. Is this a sign of old age? :p 

This happens with movies too. Sometimes I can't remember if I've seen it or not, and not until halfway in do I remember and things start to come back to me. 25 going on 26 and I'm slippin!

Currently reading: Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones (again)

mo$$, less problems

Strapped for cash. That's what I am. 

Tightening my belt. That's what I'm doing. 

Damn. What a difference 2 students, 4 classes, 8 hours can make. 

Still though, for someone who makes as much as I do, it's sad how poor I feel. Damn financial responsibilities and living standards. If I didn't mind living in a shithole outside of Taipei City and if I didn't have a mother to support and if I didn't take any classes and if I didn't have a social life, I'd be great! But well, I do and I do and I do and I do. I love living in the city in my neighborhood. My mom is no longer working and therefore I have to take care of her. Dance and capoeira are part of what make life worth living, so I can't give that up. And damnit, I gotta go out and kick it with my friends. I don't want to be a hermit!

So for now that means...

No shopping. Le sigh... 

Eating cheaply. Le sigh... 

Cheap/free entertainment. Le sigh... 

No cabs. Le sigh... 

No facials. Le sigh...

No massages. Le sigh...

No indulging myself. Le sigh...

No vacations. Le sigh sigh sigh... 

I need another source of income. Sell things online? But what? Be a NuSkin distributor? They're so annoying though. I don't know... I'm open to suggestions. Le sigh. 

Anyone?

EDIT: I got a student back. Woo! That makes me 11200NT richer a month! Hooray for schedule changes! 

Currently reading: Sara Gruen - Water for Elephants (Thank god for libraries!)

Halloween in September

Our annual BeFeFe mid-autumn festival BBQ had to be moved back a week due to the damn typhoon that kept me in ALL last last weekend. For no good reason, we decided to dress up for the event, Halloween style. OK, there was a reason. Emilia wanted to wear Wendy's bee costume with her auntie's dog who also has a bee costume. So...we had a post-mid-autum festival, pre-halloween BBQ. You got a problem with that? I didn't think so.

I was pretty much useless all night cause of the floaties. (I was not "high" as the locals say) But yeah, blowing that shit up took everything outta me. That, plus the tight ass swim cap and tight ass goggles made me a vegetable. A vegetable that eats and drinks and makes the random comment every now and then. 

Twas a good night nonetheless. :)

One more

Motorcyclist’s clothing: 

(1) is free 

(2) slippers are ok 

(3) must be clean

What is the point of this question?

Whatever

I'm planning on getting my scooter license soon so I'm taking the practice test online. Check out option 1 of this question:

What to do when the driver´s license is suspended, annulled or confiscated: 

(1) whatever 

(2) return the driver´s license to local road supervision office 

(3) return to police station

Whatever! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

A change of plans

Thursday. A work/school day. The only people who are free to do anything are Emilia, Vicky, and me. Summer's almost over so of course we gotta hit the beach! So simpo righ? Wrong! Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, it seems. 

Bright and early at 8:45 I get a wake up call from Emilia. I've only just gone to sleep like 3 hours prior so my eyelids are pretty much still glued to my eyeballs. The beach calls! but still, I roll back over and snooze until my real alarm clock goes off at 9. hit snooze. hit snooze. hit snooze. SHIT! It's 9:30 and we're supposed to meet at 10:00! I call her to say I'm gonna be half an hour late (as usual) and find out Vicky flaked cause she had also only slept for 3 hours. I thought she was down. I guess I was wrong. I jump outta bed, get my beach stuff together and I'm out the door. I try to butter Emilia up by asking if she wants me to buy her breakfast but she's already eaten. Oh well, I tried. 

I get to Taipei Main Station right on late time, 10:30. Emilia is right behind me. So which beach should we go to? The ticket girl says WaiAo is a 2 hour ride and Fulong is 1.5. We agree on Wai Ao cause we can surf if we want to and it's only half an hour further. Train ride is semi-boring but we always find some way to entertain ourselves. As vain as it sounds, taking pictures of ourselves and of each other can help pass lots and lots of time. But there are just so many people we can attempt to imitate and so many moods we can attempt to express. Keyword being "attempt." haha. Then I play English teacher for a little bit as I explain the lyrics to Jason Mraz' If It Kills Me cause I've been all over this song for a couple days now. I then try and explain Mariah's I stay in Love but for some reason I can't understand a couple lines. There's one line where I keep hearing "I float like a whale" but really? That really can't be right. She then shares some black music with me. Catchy but with no content. Whoops I didn't say anything. After about an hour, I ask if she wants to just go to Fulong cause it's closer and I do still have a class that evening at 8:00. It'd just be less of a rush and I don't really NEED to surf. 

After a bit, she goes to the bathroom as our train pulls into GongLiao which is the station right before Fulong. I start thinking about GongLiao. Every summer, there's a music festival held at Fulong beach called the GongLiao Music Festival so I start thinking maybe we're supposed to get off here. But Emilia's ass is still in the bathroom and the train is gonna leave the station soon. So I start panicking slightly. Right when she comes out I ask her if we're supposed to get off here and she uses the same logic as me and says I think so! So we're all in a frenzy gathering our shit and then jump onto the platform. Right after we step down, the train doors close behind us and we've realized we've made a horrible mistake. Oh well. Being the optimistic people that we are, we just shrug our shoulders and exit the station thinking What we should do next?

We have a couple options. Wait for the next train which comes in 1.5 hours. NO. Take a cab over to Fulong. MAYBE. As we walk out of the station, what do we see right across the street? Bicycles for rent. You wanna ride over to Fulong? OK!

It really did seem like a good idea at the time...until we got to THE HILLS!!! Uphill, uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill, uphill... 

That's basically how it went. I think all the exercise I've been doing helped me out that day. I mean, I was tired, that's f'sho. But I was definitely in a much better position than Emilia, even though my bike was really low (for my short legs) and each pedal only went like a foot. 

(Can you see Emilia making her way up the hill??? hahaha)

So after about 45 mins of going uphill, uphill, downhill, uphill, we finally reach our destination...and GUESS WHAT?! See that red flag?? It means the beach is closed due to post-typhoon maintenance. :( DAMN YOU TYPHOON THAT HAS ALREADY LEFT! We're so close! Look at the beach! Just look at it! It's beautiful... DAMN YOU RED FLAG! 

   

So...with our music on full blast and stripped down to our bikinis, we slowly make our way back to GongLiao to return the bikes. After a long day of biking, we reward ourselves with the best 便當ever! BEHOLD!!!

SHIT

I stepped on some... It was squishy...

Currently listening to: Jason Mraz - If It Kills Me

FAT CAT

So, my student was showing me her English textbook from school (which is way too easy for her by the way) and this is how our conversation went...

Merrisa: I have some bad news for you. 

Mimi: Oh? What is it?

(She shows me a pic labeled FAT CAT, then a pic labeled RED RAT, then a pic of RED RAT ON FAT CAT.)

Mimi: So what's so bad about that? 

Merrisa: Are you ready?

Mimi: Yeah. What is it?

(She turns the page and shows me a pic of the same FAT CAT labeled...)

Someone trying to tell me something??

It's typhooning

wind and rain = lazy mimi 

lazy mimi = hungry mimi

hungry mimi = grumpy mimi 

sooooooooo after many careful calculations, we have come to the conclusion that...

wind and rain = grumpy mimi

SOMEBODY FEEEEEEED MEEEEEEE!!!! 

I SOOOOO HUNGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

House of MJ (麻將之家)

It really shouldn't be THIS hard to get a game of MJ together. REALLY. It shouldn't. 

So me and To have been talking about doing MJ night for a while now, but my last couple of weeks have been crazy. Full ass weekdays of teaching, capoeira, and dance rehearsals. Then weekend trips with the fam and then with my girls (BeFeFe!). But the dance perf is over and I don't have any more trips planned, sooo we finally have time to get a game of MJ together! and it's typhooning today. PERFECT for a simple game of MJ!

Simple my ass!

So, for MJ, we need 4 people to complete the table right? I'm 1, To is 2 (hah! get it?!) so we just need 2 more. Originally, To invited a girly friend of his, Winnie (the Pooh!) who has a friend (we shall call her "doggy girl" cause she wanted to bring her dog over). So simpo, righ? WRONG. So doggy girl flakes cause it's typhooning. We're in a need of a 4th player. Problem is,  I can't find a single person who either knows how to play or knows how and likes to play. So To calls out his friend Tina who said she'll come if we can't find anyone else. Tina it is! 10:00 rolls around, and where is Winnie? Flaker texts last minute saying her mom won't let her out. Thanks for the warning, bitch! Thanks for letting us walk all around my neighborhood getting supplies for the hot food that YOU requested only to not show. (On a semi-related note, why is it so hard to find sliced bread on a typhoon night? We went to every convenient store and every bakery in my area and still, nada.) So Tina calls in her troops (We shall call her "yoga girl" cause she's a yoga instructor and because no one ever introduced her properly to me and it never even occured to me to ask for her name. Weird. ) whom we had to bribe with free cab fare and dessert made by a "hot guy" (Like how I put that in quotes?? haha). FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY we have 4 people.  

But wait! There's more!

I only have a mini MJ set. Each piece being about the size of my pinky nail so no one wants to play with it. To can't find anyone who will lend us a set so he goes out and buys one. 500NT, not too bad. It will be a good investment. You'll see. We'll put that shit to good use. So we're all ready to play right? No. Again, my shit gets hated on. They don't like my small IKEA coffee table that would've been a perfectly good sized MJ table for my mini MJ set. SOOOOO, they go out and buy a brand new MJ table, sponsered by Tina and with silky smooth paper I might add. So now there is a brand new normal sized MJ set, a brand new MJ table, brand new MJ sticks, and my house has now become the newest, hippest House of MJ. We're open on weeknights after 11:00 and weekends round the clock. Bring your friends, bring your family, and bring your NT!!! The house is waiting.

Oh, and if you must know. MJ night turned out to be a success, for me anyway. For a peanuts game, I won 400NT yo! Not bad for a rookie, ay?

I'm alive!!!!!

So I haven't blogged since my Xanga days cause basically I was just lazy. But the other day, I got a facebook wall post from my homie Karen...

"where are you? how are you? i want to know more about whats going on with you instead of you just being alive. hello??? remember you still have friends and family on this side of the world. =("

SooOoo, on that note, I thought, maybe it's time to try this out again. Just to keep those of you who care updated on me me me me me. and me.  :) This could be good. Without writing things down, I tend to forget a lot of things that have happened in my life, both good and bad. So yes, this is a new beginning. A beginning with a new and improved (HA!) and more mature (HAHA!) Mi. :) 

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